Janice’s appearance reflected the elegant presentation. Her hair was freshly coifed at the finest salon in the city, her makeup impeccable. She wore a designer slit skirt that revealed a generous length of thigh; the diamond necklace he’d given her on their fifth anniversary; the black satin pumps that never failed to seduce him.
“It’s wonderful, darling,” he said, sipping the wine. “We could have gone out and… ”
She flashed a kitten smile and put a finger to his lips.
“Tonight, sweetheart, you’re dining at the best place in town.”
“And with the sexiest lady in town… ”
“I want tonight to be perfect, Bill. In every way.”
He smiled, retrieving a mussel from its shell. It was delicious, but as it slipped down his throat, he wondered how many minutes on the treadmill it would take to wear it off.
Janice enjoyed watching him indulge himself. She was happy, for the moment at least. Bill was here, enjoying himself; they had the whole night ahead of them. All to themselves.
The moment was shattered by the shrill beep of Bill’s cell phone.
“I’m sorry, darling… ” he pulled out the device, flipping it open. He quickly read the text message, deleted it, and returned it to his coat pocket.
He made no mention of the call, resuming his meal.
Janice let it slide for a few minutes, but that was all.
“Who was that, Bill? Who would be texting you at… ” She glanced at her watch. “… eight thirty p.m. on a Friday evening? A client, perhaps? A legal assistant… ?”
Bill recognized the tone. The soft, purry questions were only the start. He knew the pattern of her progression only too well.
“Nothing to be concerned about,” he smiled, putting his fork back onto the plate.
“But I am concerned, Bill.” Her tone went up a notch. “Why can’t you tell me who it was?”
Janice glanced at her empty glass and began to pour herself more wine. She changed her mind and went instead for the decanter in the cabinet. It held scotch. She filled a tumbler with the golden fluid and downed half in one gulp.
“Who was it, Bill?”
He knew she wouldn’t believe it. She never believed it, but he answered anyway.
“It was a text message from my doctor, Janice. My cardiologist. That’s all.”
“Oh, your cardiologist again. He sure seems to call you a lot, doesn’t he?”
“You know I’ve been going weekly. You know I’m worried.”
“Yeah, you’re worried.” She took another slug of her drink.
“But I’m the one who should be worried, shouldn’t I? How do you do it, Bill? How do manage to disguise those incoming messages and phone calls? Do you have some sort of secret code or something?”
“Janice, you’re getting… ”
“Don’t say it again! I’m not hysterical, Bill! I just deserve the truth. I should be worth at least that much to you, or am I just a piece of shit that you’re tired of?”
“Janice, please… ”
She didn’t hear the rest of his sentence. It amazed her how goddamn handsome he was, despite his age. The women called him the “silver fox” down at the office. He only grew more attractive with each passing year. Janice knew she couldn’t say the same for herself. She wasn’t unattractive, but she’d gained a few pounds here and there over the past few years; needed rinse to keep the dreaded gray out of her hair, and, despite using the most expensive creams and ointments on the market, the lines on her face were becoming impossible to hide.
“Don’t you ever get tired of lying, Bill? Come on, grow up! You’re not in the courtroom. You’re with me. There’s no jury, no judge. For God’s sake, just tell me the truth for once.”
She feigned a smile. “You’ll feel better, I promise.”
“Janice, let’s not ruin a wonderful night.” He sounded tired. “I’ve told you over and over that I’m not hiding anything from you. I love you.”
He was thinking something rather different as he spoke. He was thinking that he should have known better; that this supposedly romantic interlude at home was really nothing more than an elaborate set-up. She’d baited him, only to ask the same old ridiculous questions, with the same old equally ridiculous accusations. This was really great—first a heart attack for a meal and then, for the coup-de-grace, a cardiac argument to finish it all off.
Bill took a sip of wine and suddenly realized that telling her the truth might be the best thing after all.
“You want the truth? Okay, I’m going to give it to you. There is no girlfriend, Janice, no mistress, no crushes, no secret encoded phone calls or text messages. Nothing. But there is something. For the past few months, I’ve become scared. Terrified, in fact. I’ve been thinking a lot about my father. You know how old he was when he died, and you know how he died. It was a massive heart attack, Janice, at the age of 66 years. And do you know why?”
She shook her head mockingly.
“He ignored the warning signs; too much of a hero to take one hour away from work to visit the goddamn doctor. He could have been alive to this day. I’m not going to let that happen to me! I’m 65 now, and I’m already getting the warning signs—chest pains, difficulty breathing, a tingly feeling in my arm. I know it’s creeping up on me, but I’m too young to die.
“So here’s the big dark secret, Janice, the same one I’ve told you over and over and over: I’ve been going to the cardiologist. Every week, like clockwork. And every week, I get the same response. I’m fine, I’m fit as a horse, I’ll live another twenty years! But I don’t believe it. I feel the truth, right here in my chest. And I’m not going to go down without a fight. That’s the whole story, may God strike me dead.”
Janice took a languid drink of scotch and flashed him a warm, reassuring smile. She rose from her seat and approached him, planting a warm kiss on his lips, running her fingers through his silvery hair. For a moment, just a moment, Bill believed that she believed. She returned to her side of the table.
“Is that the best you can do, Bill?” she purred in a warm tone that chilled him to the bone.
Although disappointed, he wasn’t really surprised. He was condemned to live with a woman who had gone mad with paranoid jealousy. As an experienced lawyer, he knew the difference between logic and emotion; between someone who lies and someone who suffers from delusion. Janice, sadly, was among the latter.
He shook his head and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the verbal onslaught that he knew was coming.
It did, like a tempest.
Janice’s voice rose to a shrill, accusatory pitch, the high ends of her syllables breaking into tortuous little shrieks. Her eyes were wide, her nostrils flared, spittle flew from the side of her mouth.
Through it all, Bill did his best to tune her out. It wasn’t easy, but after a while, all he heard was noise. The individual epithets were inaudible, buried beneath the static of her harangue. He just hoped it would end soon.
After some time, he opened his eyes. They were immediately attracted to a flashing red light in the distance—strangely reminiscent of an ambulance’s flashing red lights. He peered into the kitchen, noticed that it was the digital clock on the counter. Had there been a power outage? The red light began to blur, then other things too: the kitchen, the hallway; even Janice’s contorted face across the table. He became oblivious to everything—the shrieking, the smashing plates, the overturned vases.
Oh God… was this it? He’d often wondered how it might start…
Even as the thought entered his mind, Bill felt the pang in his chest; a shortness of breath, the strange ache in his left arm. He sensed that it was going to be a big one—a killer—and desperately hoped that someone would be there to rescue him.